Thaw
by tears over beers
Summary: Victoria refuses to need people; Chloe needs them all too much.
I've recently gotten into the idea of pregame!Victoria/Chloe hate fucking and I wanted to just thrash out a little piece in one go to express that as well as my views on who Rachel might have been when she was alive.

We're dealing with one sided Amberprice, Chaseprice (obviously) and a couple of mentions of Pricefield.

* * *

It's amazing what you'll do to be on top.

Or, at least to _feel_ like you're on top.

You stand in the middle of a dark room, shitty techno music blaring as a double dozen sweaty bodies writhe around you. You're half drunk on some spirit that _burns_ your insides but it's the only way you can truly show face at these events.

You're better than this. Your parents own their own _gallery_ for fuck's sake. You don't need cheap booze and thawed out snacks to be special. This, though, this is popularity. This is being on top. This is being the centre of attention, Queen bee and you'll tolerate just about anything to get on top.

You flit around the room, winking at the boys, gigging with the girls, strutting in and out of the VIP area. You're Victoria Chase, centre of attention, the name on _everyone_ at Blackwell's lips.

At least, for the most part.

There's one girl – just one – that seems to do it better than you. Tall, slender, long blonde hair and the perfect mix of sultry and nonchalant. Rachel Amber.

She enters the room and you down the rest of your drink, crumpling the cup in disgust. No way. No way in Hell are you being shown up. Not tonight.

Yet you still strut up to her, kiss both cheeks, show the pretence of friendship. It's all about manipulation, the fame game. You should know. Your Mother taught you well (on the occasions you actually saw her, that is)

"Rachel" you coo. "I thought you would never make it. And look, you even brought your pet along with you!"

Slouching next to Rachel, arms folded, grimacing, is a blue haired girl that you know mainly for being attached to Rachel's hip at all times. Always doing her bidding. Always running after her. Cleo? Kirsty? _Chloe_. First person kicked out of Blackwell in years. It's hard to know the real reason why amidst all the outlandish rumours.

Generally, you think it's a bit pathetic, depending on someone like that. It makes you feel sick.

Rachel simply laughs a greeting back whilst her companion glares at you. She opens her mouth to say something but Rachel stops her with one look. She flits off to the next group of people, little rebel puppy in tow. You don't see Rachel Amber again all night.

Your stomach churns, flips as you watch her socialise effortlessly. You grab a drink, then another, willing yourself to get over your jealousy, to prove who is Queen. Somewhere between your fourth and fifth drink you lose track of everything completely – you swear you were just taking to Taylor but suddenly you can't see any of your 'friends' anywhere. Sinking another drink has you hurtling outside for fresh air, eyes stinging as loneliness creeps through your bones. No one to care. No one to care. All too busy fucking one another and licking the ass of Rachel Amber.

Why does it matter so much to you? Why is it so imperative that you have to prove yourself at every step? Narcissist. Control Freak. Bitch.

You stumble forward, grasping one hand to your head as you try to block out the words forming in your brain. No. Not tonight. Not tonight.

You refuse to be weak.

Finally, you stumble across something to hold yourself up against. The material feels cool against your back and you slide down to the floor, sitting against whatever it is you have found comfort in leaning against.

You hear a car door open next to you. A figure steps out, swamped by smoke.

A truck.

You're leaning against a truck.

The door slams closed.

"What the _fuck_?"

As your vision clears you realise its Rachel's little follower from earlier. Chloe Price.

She looms over you, lips pulled into a snarl. Her eyes are red although you can't tell if it's from crying or the weed that she has obviously been smoking. You notice her shirt is damp and her fists are clenched; blood trails from the knuckles of one hand. She's shivering. You stumble to your feet, using the truck as support.

You want to say something smart – anything – but all you can blurt out in your drunken stupor is "Why is your shirt wet?"

Chloe rolls her eyes and snorts. She takes a drag of the joint in her hand.

"Why are you all alone? Don't you have Vortex members to bang?"

"Why are _you_ alone? No Rachel to trail around after?" you retort.

Her gaze turns stony and for a second you think she might actually punch you. She turns on her heel and wrenches open the truck door.

"You didn't answer my first question"

Chloe turns, hand still holding the handle of the truck.

"Some prick managed to throw a drink on me. And I don't _trail_ after Rachel. I don't even know where she is right now"

You want to leave her behind, go back to your dorm and drift off into a drunken sleep. There's something about the look in Chloe's eyes, however, something about the way she is shaking, her face red and puffy, her knuckles bleeding that simply makes you say:

"Did you need to dry off? Or a bandage for your gross hand?"

Chloe furrows her brows at you and doesn't reply.

" _Whatever_. Get pneumonia and an infection, see if I care"

You turn on your heel and walk back towards your dorms. You hear footsteps following you. By the uneven pace you can tell that she's as wasted as you are.

You know neither of you would be anywhere near each other if you were sober.

You lead her to your dorm, open the door and after a dig through your draws throw a towel and a pack of antibacterial wipes at her.

"Do try to clean yourself up. I'm not lending you any of my clothes, if that's what you think. They're far too expensive to be wasted on you"

Chloe snorts and begins haphazardly dabbing at her knuckles with a wipe, clearing up all of the dried blood. You notice the scrapes across her knuckles and realise that she'd probably had a go at the wall with her fist. You know the injury. You've dealt with Nathan enough times.

"So" Chloe begins, beginning to dab at her shirt with the towel. "Where are all your little cronies? Off having fun without their fearless leader? Have the worker bees finally realised what a bitch their Queen bee is? Buzz buzz"

"My _friends"_ Victoria retorts. "Obviously just can't handle the same lifestyle as me. I am the one that really brings these Vortex parties to life, you know"

"Friends. Slaves. I'm sure it's all the same to you"

"No, but the way that you follow your precious slut Rachel around makes me think it's all the same to her. Where is she again tonight?"

Chloe drops the towel and lurches forward until the two are face to face. You can see the anger in her eyes, see she wants to take it out anyone, anything. That would be why her hand is bleeding.

You're angry, too, though and right now she wants to take it out on the world.

" _Shut the fuck up Victoria_ "

You laugh softly, air blowing Chloe's face.

"Protective, aren't we?"

Chloe doesn't respond verbally, only clenching her jaw.

"You don't know where she is, do you?"

"Why does it matter? Why would I tell you?"

"Textbook attachment. You might look big the other others but I can see right through you, Price and it's pathetic"

"I don't need anyone" she grunts. "And I don't need to take advice from some stuck up bitch"

You can feel her body just inches away from your own, warm and surprisingly enticing. You imagine what it might be like to feel something for once in your Goddamn life; you long to feel the warmth that exudes from another person all over you, to crush the drunken loneliness that has crept throughout your body tonight.

You don't know quite how it got from the point of wanting to kill the girl in front of you to pressing your lips to her own; all you now is that your body lurches forward and presses the two of you together, your fingers grasping at her hair. Occupying yourself with her, with another person momentarily makes you forget all the fucked up things that are happening all around you.

She doesn't move at first and a fleeting panic at how _pathetic_ you must look rises up inside you before being crushed by her lips moving against your own. She grabs your hips tightly, too tightly, nails digging into skin in the _best_ way. Anger, anger, hatred, betrayal. She moves you backwards quickly, half throws you down against your own bed and you pull at her, pull her closer because hell you'll take anything you can get right now.

It doesn't mean anything, you think, and you whole heartedly believe that because honestly, if you were sober you wouldn't stand to even be in the same room as this girl and yet here she is, all teeth and nails, tearing off your shirt, slipping her fingers into your skirt, into your underwear, into _you_.

As she sucks a rough trail down your chest, your stomach, scraping your skin with her teeth all you can focus on is the heat building inside your lower body. All of the worrying, the trying to be on top, the wanting, _needing_ to succeed dissipates as her mouth finally reaches the place you need her most.

By the time you've cried out in a rush of pleasure, by the time you've flipped her over to repay the favour you're concentrating far too much on working your hand between her legs to even think for a second about the things that had previously plagued your mind. You don't even care when she calls you Rachel as she reaches climax.

There's no bullshit cuddling afterwards, either. She dresses herself, you tell her to let herself out and she does just that, lighting a cigarette on the way. You slip into sleep easily, still half drunk and too tired to worry.

When you wake the next morning you go for the routinely hangover breakfast with the rest of the Vortex Club. Voices buzz with information, who hooked up with who, who got too drunk. When asked where you went, if you went home with anybody you keep your lips pursed. You laugh. Mother called, you say. She was drunk. She wanted to transfer you more money as an apology for missing your birthday last week. By the time you came back most people had left. You went to sleep. You didn't bring anyone home.

You never took her number. You don't care. You know this is a onetime thing – at least you assume – and it isn't something that particularly plagues your day to day life.

It isn't for another three weeks, the next Vortex party that it happens again. It surprises you, although not in a bad way. It's the same shit; you get fucked up and you run into her. This time, however, it's the two of you that skip out on the rest. Nathan had begun punching a wall and despite your best efforts to calm him he'd just snorted more coke and dived into the pool. He's great, he'd said. On top of the world. What else could you do? He's your brother, basically. You find comfort in the fact that each of you are a fucked up product of a capitalist society; that doesn't mean you can always handle his manic moments, however, despite how much you try.

Rachel had been all over one of the football kids. You'd bumped into Chloe as you both stormed out. You'd bickered – you couldn't _stand_ the girl, in all honesty – but you'd both needed a pick me up and ended up high as all hell, all over each other, writhing in your sheets once again.

She calls you Rachel again and you get the urge to bite her neck, bite it hard and suck, suck, suck. You do and it leaves the ugliest bruise. At the time, she has absolutely no complaints. Afterwards she storms off, "how am I supposed to explain this?"

You're not Rachel Amber. You're better. You'll show everyone. Even her. Even her.

You don't quite remember how many more parties you go to in which you bump into her, tagging along with Rachel. Five? Six?

All you know is it always ends the same; something throws you both off and you end up carnally fucking in your dorm room, a mess of sheets and limbs and sweat.

Eventually one of you picks up the other's number – again, you don't quite remember how although you know it was on the promise of drugs – and you end up getting high together on a regular basis, hotboxing her truck in a deserted area near the beach.

Sometimes you even fuck in it. At first it was something you were against – you were certainly above _that_ – but she'd said something about Rachel's hardcore side and you were not letting her win without a fight.

Rachel. Rachel. Rachel.

All that anyone in the deadbeat town of Arcadia Bay ever fucking talked about.

A smaller part of you admits, as she sneaks you into her room one night, that you see a part of yourself in Chloe. That maybe you're just two sides of the same coin.

Both of you left alone to face the world by your parents (in different ways, sure, but no matter how someone leaves it still _hurts_ ), both having this ripping, tearing feeling inside of not being good enough, never, ever, ever.

You even confide in each other once in a while.

Accidentally, of course.

Sometimes, when one of you is really angry, really drunk, really stoned, you blurt things out. How she never forgave her Dad for leaving. Never forgave her Mum for forgetting her Father. Never forgave her childhood friend (you don't recall the name. Mary? Madison? All you remember is the way she hesitates before she says the word _friend_ and you consider that Chloe might have a habit of falling in love with best friends) for leaving her. That Rachel saved her life, completely, but the gut wrenching feeling inside of her won out sometimes and she'd snap, angry and every time she'd be terrified that she'd lose her. She never did. Rachel always came back, always looked after her, always loved her. Maybe not in the right way. Maybe it was still enough, though. Maybe she actually believed Rachel would never leave her, not like the others did. No. She _did_ believe that. No matter how much she'd act out, lose her temper, angry, angry, Rachel had her back. She sighs as she says it. It's the most comfortable you've ever seen her.

You spill, too. About how you can never live up to your parents' expectations. About how they sent you from boarding school to boarding school so that they could go gallivanting; how you know children were never planned, that the array of Nannies you had growing up proved that. How your parents always tried to buy your love in lieu of their absences. How you were worried that one of these days Nathan really would fly off the wall and hurt himself or somebody else. How you didn't know which was worse. How you couldn't bare to lose the connection you had with him.

Every time one of you has finished speaking, every time you finish up in bed, you pretend it never happened. You sneak back out, leave wherever you had convened together and never repeat a word to anybody.

Not even Rachel. Not even Nathan.

A few months later - a few months into your affair – you visit your parent's gallery. You stay for two weeks. You act like you're upset about missing the latest big Vortex party but secretly you still just want to impress your parents.

When you arrive back in Arcadia Bay the mood is sombre. You strut into school and people that had followed Rachel around suddenly came up to you, asking how you had been. Sure, they were your friends but now it was different, some kind of devotion or some shit.

You find Nathan and he looks pale. You don't quite know what's wrong but something in the air is stale.

"What happened?" you smirk. "Someone die?"

He pales, stutters. He feels sick, he says. Best go back to his dorm.

You roll your eyes. It's whatever. You're used to his mood swings.

It isn't until you walk towards your dormitory that evening that you see the wanted posters. Your heart sinks.

MISSING: RACHEL AMBER

You don't quite believe it. This girl you hate suddenly gone without a trace. Poof. Vanish. Bye.

You had always wanted to best her but not like this.

You open the door to rush inside and collide head first with another girl. Posters fly everywhere and you're knocked down.

"Will you watch out?" You half scream, picking yourself up. "Do you know how much this shirt cost?"

It isn't until you stand fully up that you notice who it was that you ran headfirst into: Chloe Price. She's pale, eyes red rimmed, shaking, healing grazes on one knuckle just like the first time you truly collided paths with her.

You look at each other for a second but neither of you makes a move to say anything. You rush inside the dorms, pushing roughly past her, running into your bedroom.

Guilt hits you, a tide in your chest. Suddenly, the whispers, the people asking after you make so much sense now.

No matter how prestigious Blackwell is, high school is high school, baby.

There always needs to be someone on top.

Have you effectively taken Rachel's place as the one to be adored?

You always wanted rid of her. Always.

Not like this, though.

Not like this.

You scrub a hand over your face. You didn't even _know_ her, not really. Good riddance.

You make a point to strut through Blackwell, head up. Like you own the place.

You and Nathan, you _do_ own the place and anyone that disagrees gets beaten down instantly. That science geek. That Christian bitch. _Anyone_.

You don't talk to Chloe again.

In the coming months a new girl appears at Blackwell and within a week you're over her mysterious hipster bullshit.

Max Caulfield only drives you harder to win, win the photo contest, win at _life_ ; if she thinks her talent is _anything_ compared to yours then she's got another thing coming.

One day in Autumn, you walk past Max, not giving her a second glance as with any other day. You hear a familiar voice, one that you haven't heard in half a year and it sends chills up your spine. You whip your head back to look and there, next to Caulfield is that familiar blue head, those ripped jeans. You can't believe your eyes.

Someone you used to fuck hanging out with _Caulfield_?

Chloe catches your eye, looks at you. You shake your head at her and walk on.

"Don't worry about her" you hear Max mutter. "It's only Victoria. I don't know if you knew her before you got expelled. She's kind of just a bitch"

"Looks like it" you hear Chloe grunt.

It doesn't surprise you, you think. Since Rachel's disappearance, Chloe didn't have anyone to follow like a lost puppy. It doesn't surprise you that she's found someone new.

Chloe Price, wanting to be so independent, so individual and yet always the loyal follower to some overhyped, cliché girl who's bidding she'll do. Always the sheep, never the shepherd. Always weak to emotion.

It's pathetic, you thin; at least you know how to truly close off.

You quicken your pace.

That Friday you find yourself in the oh-so-exclusive VIP Vortex lounge at the ever popular end of the world party. You're two drinks down already and you tap absently on your plastic cup, waiting for Nathan to finally show up. This place is giving you a headache already and you're hoping he turns up with something to make the evening a little more fun.

You jump when a figure bursts through the curtain hastily.

You recognise her instantly. Of course you do. You've seen her in every way, bare in the realest sense of the term.

" _Nathan!_ " Chloe screams, pulling back a curtain, tossing over a chair. The others in the VIP area are too drunk, stoned or busy groping one another to even _notice_.

As soon as she spots you she charges up to you, gets right in your face.

" _Where's Nathan?_ " she growls.

You put your arms on her shoulders, push her backwards.

"Get away from me, dog. And clean your teeth once in a while"

"I'm not playing, Victoria. You better fucking tell me because I'm hella mad and I'm about to go off on all of your asses if one of you doesn't _fucking tell me_ "

She's shaking. Sweat forms on her brow, her hair hanging limp over her face. She looks crazed, eyes wide, mouth twisted into a snarl. She's gripping something in her jacket pocket.

"What are you holding?" You ask, taking a step back automatically. Something about this situation rubs you the wrong way. In all the times you've seen her angry, desperate, bursting with emotion, you've never seen her like this.

She grips the object harder. Her hand slips slightly, up out of her pocket. You see the handle of a gun and freeze.

"Is that… is that what I think it is?"

" _Tell me where Nathan is_ "

You falter, swallowing hard. You wonder if she's gone clinically insane. It wouldn't surprise you.

"Why would I tell you?" You try to stand your ground but fear sends your voice to a higher octave. "Let you shoot my best friend?"

" _He killed Rachel_ " she thunders, gripping the gun harder still.

You start to stutter, start to defend him, deny it but you can tell by the look in her eyes that she isn't listening and honestly, you're scared that if you don't give her an answer soon then something could go terribly wrong.

"I don't know – he's not here"

She studies you for a minute, really looking into your eyes, reading your expression. Without another word she turns on her heel and storms out of the VIP lounge.

You're not quite sure why she trusted you. Maybe, you consider, she could see herself in you as you had in her.

You try and shake the thought.

It isn't ten minutes before Caulfield stumbles in, also asking for Nathan and warning you that you're next in some plot, the plot as to why Rachel Amber went missing.

You roll your eyes and send her on her way.

Now you know where Chloe got the idea from; it's pathetic really, you think.

(You won't admit – not even to yourself – that a part of you is jealous of Max. That a part of you wishes to be in her shoes. That maybe, maybe you want to be beside Chloe. That maybe you want to be the one she follows, the one who she looks at with those puppy eyes. That maybe the last time you felt alive – really, truly – was when her skin was touching yours, her breath in your ear, searching, searching for something you both needed)

You down another drink to hide the shakes, scrub your face and settle down next to Dana to wait for Nathan.

You truly hope he turns up soon. You could use a pick me up.


End file.
